‘THE GITÁNOS OUGHT TO BE SEIZED WHEREVER FOUND
‘The civil law ordains that vagrants be seized wherever they are found, without any favour being shown to them; in conformity with which, the Gitános in the Greek empire were given as slaves to those who should capture them; as respectable authors write. Moreover, the emperor, our lord, has decreed by a law made in Toledo, in the year 1525, _that the third time they be found wandering they shall serve as slaves during their whole life to those who capture them_. Which can be easily justified, inasmuch as there is no shepherd who does not place barriers against the wolves, and does not endeavour to save his flock, and I have already exposed to your Majesty the damage which the Gitános perpetrate in Spain.
‘THE GITÁNOS OUGHT TO BE CONDEMNED TO DEATH
‘The reasons are many. The first, for being spies, and traitors to the crown; the second as idlers and vagabonds.
‘It ought always to be considered, that no sooner did the race of man begin, after the creation of the world, than the important point of civil policy arose of condemning vagrants to death; for Cain was certain that he should meet his destruction in wandering as a vagabond for the murder of Abel. _Ero vagus et profugus in terra: omnis igitur qui invenerit me_, _occidet me_. Now, the _igitur_ stands here as the natural consequence of _vagus ero_; as it is evident, that whoever shall see me must kill me, because he sees me a wanderer. And it must always be remembered, that at that time there were no people in the world but the parents and brothers of Cain, as St. Ambrose has remarked. Moreover, God, by the mouth of Jeremias, menaced his people, that all should devour them whilst they went wandering amongst the mountains. And it is a doctrine entertained by theologians, that the mere act of wandering, without anything else, carries with it a vehement suspicion of capital crime. Nature herself demonstrates it in the curious political system of the bees, in whose well-governed republic the drones are killed in April, when they commence working.
‘The third, because they are stealers of four-footed beasts, who are condemned to death by the laws of Spain, in the wise code of the famous King Don Alonso; which enactment became a part of the common law.